


Wheel of Memory

by CaptainKaysno



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Alteration, Multi, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 10:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14932245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKaysno/pseuds/CaptainKaysno
Summary: Ben doesn’t know much of anything but he does know at least three things: He’s lived in this dungeon cell his whole life; the man and woman across the hallway sometimes try to talk to him, but for the most part they are silent, and finally he has four visitors that he sees almost every day.





	Wheel of Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmberzillaRex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberzillaRex/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for the one and only amazing Dave! I love you to pieces and I hope that you like this!

Ben doesn’t know much of anything but he does know at least three things: He’s lived in this dungeon cell his whole life; the man and woman across the hallway sometimes try to talk to him, but for the most part they are silent, and finally he has four visitors that he sees almost every day.

The Princess comes to see him first after breakfast every day like clockwork. Her hair is a charming blue, and Ben thinks that she would be beautiful if she smiled.

He has never once seen her smile.

“How is he this morning?” the Princess whispers to the couple across the hall.

“Maleficent isn’t going to take him again for at least another few days,” the man answers, voice deep and comforting. 

Despite himself, Ben shudders violently at the thought of Maleficent coming back at all and then holds himself perfectly still. There is a sound close to a sob from one of the two women, but Ben keeps staring resolutely at the ground. He can’t stay this way forever, but stillness helps the pain that radiates from every inch of his being.

Seeing Maleficent was always the worst because she would wait until Ben was almost healed. Until he could move around his cell without it feeling like every inch of him was on fire. Then she would come for him and once again he’d be confined to small steps and sometimes crawling.

That and the fact that she’s inventive, cruel, and never consistent. Pleasing her is a task that he hasn’t managed yet.

He only wants to please her to stop her from hurting him.

(Please god stop letting her hurt him, please god stop letting her hurt him, please god-)

“Ben?” the Princess calls out. 

Ben hasn't been able to deny her anything. He looks up. 

She looks as heartbroken and as breathtaking as always. Her eyes are different though, the broken look, or even worse her blank look, that she had every other time he’d seen her wasn’t there.

Instead, she just looks tired and resolute like she’s made her choice and she has to stick with it.

“What’s different?” Ben asks, so curious he manages to get up and walk across the room, managing to muffle the cry of pain that escapes his throat at the unbearable pain.

The Princess jumps away from the cell wall in shock before practically plastering herself against the forcefield that keeps people away who don’t have permission to come to get him. Ben has a hunch that that can’t feel comfortable.

“Your eyes are different,” he repeats, a little shocked now at the way his voice sounds. He’s never talked this much. “Are you-” he has to fight for the word, has to reach back and back towards the end of his little library where he keeps all of his knowledge. “Are you okay?”

The Princess looks at him steadily, and then, like the clouds parting away from a sunrise, she smiles.

She places her hand on the forcefield and then chokes back a sob when Ben hesitantly places a hand on the other side. It hurts like pins and needles, but he forces his hand to stay, relishing in the idea of touching somebody else like that. Clean and neat and sweet with no promises of rewards or punishment if he did.  He marvels at her hand and then moves back to look at her.

“I’m going to be more okay than I’ve been in a long time in just a little while, Ben. It’s all going to be okay.” Her words are not as comforting as Ben thinks she means them to be.

“Be safe,” he says, the words distant because he’s never said them before in his life. They feel right though. The Princess should always be safe and happy. “I just- I don’t want you to get hurt.”

The smile she has now is a type of smile he’s never seen before  It takes the breath out of his lungs, and Ben thinks that she could make many people very scared with a smile like that. It almost reminds him of the Evil Queen if he wasn’t so sure that The Princess is on his side.

“Ben, I’m going to raze this kingdom to the ground for you, and I’m going to do it perfectly.”

She flips her hair to the side and sashays out, her heels clacking against the stairs evenly before she creeps out of the doorway.  Ben blinks after her and then looks at the couple across from him. They’re watching him with wide eyes. 

“I think I know her,” he states, needlessly.

“That’s a bit of an understatement, son,” the man says, and Ben blinks at him.

“There’s something wrong with the magic she put on me,” he thinks out loud, and then he blinks at himself. “There is no magic on me.”

He gives the couple across the room a hollow smile. They stare back at him unhappily. “Don’t mind me, I’m just-” he pauses his mind twitching, a thought filtering across his conscious before it leaves him again. “I’m just being stupid.”

*

Everyday sometime after lunch but before dinner, The Inventor comes down to see Ben. He usually brings some type of food with him Today he’s brought three apples, two of which he gives over to his cellmates across the hallway before turning to look at him with his burning eyes.

Ben sometimes gets scared of what exactly all The Inventor can see with those eyes of his.

“Evie said that you were doing better today.”

 _Evie._ Ben tries to remember the name. He has a feeling that he won’t for long, but he has to try.

“Am I?” Ben asks, blinking at the thought.

The Inventor’s eyes sparks and then dim down until they’re back to the constantly raging fire. “You are.”

Ben looks at him closely, and then without any thoughts he says, “Is Dude-” he chokes on his next words, and then he forgets what he was saying. “I’m sorry, I’m being stupid again.”

The Inventor stops, his apple halfway to his mouth. His eyes are inscrutable,  “Do you know who Dude is?”

“No,” Ben answers, frowning at himself. 

“He’s a dog that I had,” the Inventor says slowly. “You gave him to me.”

Ben gives him a docile smile. “I’ve never seen a dog before in my life.”

The words feel wrong in his mouth even though Ben knows they’re true. He knows of dogs abstractly the same way that he knows that there is life outside of this dungeon and castle with its red-tinged walls. He's never seen one and felt the feeling of soft fur running through his fingers as he stares up at the Inventor in a tree-

“Why was she different this morning?” Ben asks, yanking himself away from his thoughts terrified.

The Inventor stares at him before pulling out a threadbare journal small enough to go into his pocket. “You’re more talkative than you’ve been in a long time,” he says instead of answering Ben’s question.

Ben knows when he’s been shut down so he just sighs and shifts carefully so his back is against the cell wall and closes his eyes.

“I'll-” The Inventor starts, and Ben tiredly opens his eyes to look at him. The Inventor gives him a strained look. “We’ll explain in a while, Ben.”

Ben simply nods, before pausing. “Are you building more things?” he asks. The Inventor used to tell him more about his inventions. “Can you tell me about those?”

The Inventor pauses and for a second Ben is scared he's gone too far. That his mouth will get him in trouble.

“Well, lately I’ve been trying to-”

Ben falls asleep to explanations that go over his head about magic and its effect on the variety of mechanical implements that The Inventor is trying to make.  

**

The Thief likes to come into the dungeon about the same time as the last ring for dinner comes in.

In the time since the Inventor had left and Ben had woken up he’s been jittery. The couple across the hallway are pacing the room talking to each other with their eyes.

“What are you planning?” Ben asks the Thief, his hands fidgeting against each other nervously.

There’s something restless, hard and deep under his breastbone, and he doesn’t know what this means, and he can’t even pace up and down the cell, because he’s used all of his energy earlier to get to- to- to _Evie_ that morning.

“Are you going to get hurt? Don’t do it if you’re going to get hurt,” Ben pleads. He’s had nightmares about it before. The Thief with blood in his hair and on his teeth staring at Ben helplessly while Ben screamed.

The Thief blinks at him with a thousand emotions flickering across his face before his face gentles. “We’re not- We aren’t going to be hurt.”

Ben stares at him before narrowing his eyes. “That’s not - I don’t -” he growls and throws his hands up in frustration before hissing in pain when it jostles him. “What are you planning, Jay?”

The silence is unbearable as Ben blinks at himself.

“Is- Is that your name?” he asks. “Jay?”

Jay nods, swallowing hard. “We- I wasn’t expecting you to figure us out so soon,” he admits before he laughs a little to himself. “I forgot how smart you are without that magical shit holding you down.”

Ben has no idea what he’s talking about. (He knows exactly what Jay is talking about. Except he doesn’t. God, his head hurts.) “I don’t have any magic on me,” he insists.

Jay gives him a weak smile. “Pretty soon you won’t, yeah,” he agrees. Ben decides to ignore that for the time being because focusing too hard makes his head hurt even worse.

“So there’s-” Ben takes a deep breath. His mind won’t work the way he needs it to. His thoughts scatter just after he collects them. He forces them back together, as best as he can. "So there is a plan?"

"There's a plan," Jay admits after what looks like a very serious internal debate. "I can’t tell you anything else though.”

Ben frowns, before nodding slowly. “I get it,” he agrees. The best strategies are the ones that are kept as close to the chest as possible. “Is it a good plan?

Jay nods, relaxing when he realizes that Ben isn’t about to interrogate him. "Yeah, it's - We wouldn't risk it, if it wasn't."

Ben wants to ask what exactly they’re risking here, when he feels something break open inside his chest. It's not immediately painful, for a second it just feels like something slimy and horrible is crawling over him, before it drips off him, leaving him shivering. It slithers away from Ben’s prone form, seeping into the stones of his cell, and then suddenly it feels like he’s burning.  He hears his parents and Jay let out a cry of worry as he falls backwards on the uncomfortable cot that has been his bed for months

His awareness hits him first, the haze of magic that Maleficent put on him lifting, until his brain is fully online. It also means that the pain that was debilitating before has dulled down to very uncomfortable, which is such a relief that Ben could cry.

Then the memories come washing over him like a tidal wave. There are so many of them, more than Ben has ever had before. Memories of the villains breaking down the barrier, memories of Maleficent, Jafar, Grimhilde and Cruella ruining the throne room and breaking their children in front of Ben’s eyes as he screamed for them to stop.

They keep going on until finally, they move backwards into the happier memories that he hadn’t even known he was missing. Memories of his friends and his parents running together into a painful and colorful tapestry that goes back until he’s all of four and clutching onto his father’s hand as he’s lead back into his bedroom.

“See,” his father had explained, lifting him up effortlessly into his arms as they stare across the dark water to the Isle. “There can’t be any monsters under your bed because all of the monsters are way over there.”

Ben twists his head to the side. “How did you get all of the monsters in one place?” he’d asked puzzled.

His father had puffed his chest out. “It took a lot and a lot of work, son, but we were determined to make a better safer future for you. So we did it.”

“How do you know if something is a monster or not?” Ben had asked.

His father had laid him on his bed. “That’s a question for another day,” he had said, kissing Ben on the forehead and then tickling him until Ben is shrieking with laughter. “For now it’s time for little princes to sleep.”

“I love you, Daddy, thank you for taking the monsters away.” Ben had said.

His father had kissed him on the forehead one last time. “Of course, and they’ll stay away if I have anything to say about it.”

Ben takes a deep and shuddering breath when he comes back to himself and then almost starts crying. He feels like somebody grabbed the inside of his very being and scraped him utterly raw.

He bites his hand - hard to stop the habit - before slowly sitting up. The few non magical wounds that remain are nothing compared to the pain that has been keeping him from moving earlier, but they aren’t anything to scoff at either.

He looks around after he sits up all the way and feels his heart nearly stop when he can’t find Jay. He looks over at his parents - his father is nervously pacing the cage while his mother is staring out towards him with fear written all over her face until they finally meet eyes, and she nearly collapses from relief.

Ben doesn’t know how they can stand to look at him. He turns away first to look around again, “Where’s Jay?” he asks.

“He ran after you fell,” his mother explains, her hand reaching out through her bars like she wants to hold him. Her lips purse. “We’re hoping that it’s a better sign than it sounds.”

“So, now we wait?” Ben asks appalled.

“We’ve been doing it for months now,” Dad says, his lips curved into a unamused smile. “What’s another hour?”

They don’t talk about how the next hour could be the most important in months. It’s understood.

Ben hugs himself, stares down at the floor and hates himself for wishing that he was under Maleficent's haze again. It was just so much easier than sitting here and letting hope unravel in his chest.

**

His last visitor has a habit of coming just before the clock tower strikes midnight.

Ben still doesn’t think it’s her when the door keeping him and his parents from the outside world opens and hurried footsteps make their way down the stairs. The bare few torches that always burn with unholy green fire have long since been extinguished.

The footsteps stop at the bottom of the stairs.

Ben holds his breath.

“God, I can’t see anything,” Mal huffs, and Ben sits up with his heart in his throat. There’s a muttered spell and a little purple fire emerges from the total darkness. “Ben?”

“Hello?” Ben calls out.

Maleficent pulled a lot of tricks on him in the time of his captivity. Over and over again and first before she'd finally drop it when Ben got wise to her again. 

She only pretended to be Mal once. It was the only time that Ben openly rebelled.

He’s still not sure how he survived that beating but she didn’t try it again.

The footsteps make their way towards his cell until Mal hits the forcefield. Her face breaks out into a wan smile. “I’m here,” she jokes, there’s blood on her face and she looks exhausted. “Your dashing princess to save you from the evil witch.”

“Can you-” Ben takes a deep breath. “If I give you a sentence can you tell me what it means?”

“I don’t know if right now is the time to be playing a word association game Ben-” Mal huffs as she pulls a spellbook out of her rip and shinged pants pocket.

“I love you.”

Her reaction is as immediate and visceral as Ben remembers. She drops her spellbook and the flame wavers in her hand as she stares at him. “Don’t say that right now,” she commands. Her hands are shaking when she picks her spellbook up again.

“It’s true,” Ben says, because it is. He pauses, “It was also a test.”

Mal relaxes because she understands tests about as much - if not more - than Ben does at this point. “Not a very fun test,” she accuses him, voice a weak attempt at light. Her eyes scan back over the spellbook. “Come on, come on.”

“ _Make it easy, make it quick. Open up without a kick.”_

Nothing happens. Mal curses, paging through the book.

_“Toad's breath and vampire's tickle, open up this door a little!”_

The door to his cell clicks open, but the static of the forcefield still fizzles.

Something close to a sob comes out of her mouth. Ben ignores it, watching her intently.  “Come on,” Mal demands, stomping her foot as she skims the pages for a few more spells.

_“Barrier that keeps him sealed, forcefully this spell I wield. Love’s power breaks the shield, so his wounds may be healed.”_

There’s a hissing sound as a suddenly visible, green forcefield tears itself apart.

“Yes,” Mal cheers, pushing the cell door open. Ben fights his way up to a standing position, using the stone wall as support. Mal waits for him until Ben gives her a signal to tell her to help him. He holds his arm out, and she ducks beneath it.

“When I told you I had moves,” Ben starts, breathing heavily, “I didn’t think this is how I was going to show you.”

She laughs, before covering her mouth with her hand. “I kind of hate how calm you are,” she admits.

“It’s this or crying,” Ben offers.

She pulls a face, both of them wilfully ignoring the glimmer of frustrated tears on her cheek. “Gross.”

They move across the way, slowly and with much difficulty until Ben is finally standing face to face with his parents.

Mom reaches through the cell bars and takes his face in her hands. She’s crying, small, hiccuping sobs before she laughs tearfully. “I never thought I’d be able to touch you again,” she confesses. Her thumbs runs under Ben’s eyes, and it’s just then that he realizes he’s crying as well.

His dad is hovering behind his mom, eyes wide and wild as he looks them both over. Ben holds out his other hand and his dad grabs onto it like it’s a lifeline.

Mal whispers one of the incantations she tried to use earlier and then pushes onto the door. It swings open on the first try. Neither of his parents move.

“I hate to break this up,” Mal says, sympathetically. “But I think we need to get Ben out of here.”

“Of course,” Mom says, her hands falling away from his face reluctantly, smoothing down her torn and wrinkled dress daintly. She pulls his dad’s hand away from his and drags him to the cell door before taking Mal’s spot by his side.

His dad pulls Mal into a brief, uncomfortable hug before coming to Ben’s other side. He could honestly probably just carry Ben at this point, but Ben does appreciate his attempt to at least try to let Ben keep the last scraps of his dignity.

“What’s going on?” Mom asks.

“Maleficent is dead,” Mal’s voice wavers but she presses on, “Right now there are more than a few supporters of Ben going through and rounding up the last of her supporters.”

The thought of Ben having any supporters left floors him and it’s only his parents combined strength that keep him moving forward and up the stairs. The hallway is almost entirely silent but the distant calls and cries of fighting.

“Have you been working on this the whole time?” Ben asks.

Mal shrugs, not saying anything more as she leads them out into a different section of the castle to a suite of unused guest rooms. “Here,” she says, pushing open the door to a random guest room. “You can sleep here.”

She pulls a chair in front of the door as she takes a wickedly sharp knife from out of her sleeve. Ben throat seizes and with a muffled curse she tucks it away again. “You can sleep here,” she says again, eyes calm and serious. She relaxes into the chair, in a way that Ben has always associated with a cat about to pounce on its prey. A chill runs up and down Ben’s spine even though the knife doesn’t come back out. “I’ll keep watch.”

Ben feels like it says something about him that he doesn’t argue with his parents as they deposit him on the bed and then with one last look around him. A long look at the back of Mal’s head and then he falls asleep.

He wakes up with nightmares more than once that night. Each time of a new unlocked memory that sends him shaking and retching while his parents hold him and Mal sits unwavering like a guardian at the door.

**                                                                          

He wakes up to the sound of soft voices talking to each other.

He keeps his breathing relaxed and even, his muscles loose on the pillow as he tries to figure out who has him.

“We know you’re awake, Ben,” Carlos says. His tone is muted, but even then it makes Ben’s heart race. He might not have anything to fear here, but he can’t quite convince himself that Maleficent finally broke him completely and now he’s just hallucinating.

Carlos is sitting on the edge of his bed. He’s not even looking at Ben which makes him think that maybe he was just guessing. There’s a streak of blood across his cheek, and he looks even thinner up close than through the forcefield. Evie is across the room sitting in Mal’s lap with her arms thrown around Mal’s shoulders. Her hair is hanging around her face, her face scrubbed pink like she’s washed it over and over again, and she gives Ben a small smile when she notices him looking at her.

Mal is asleep, and she looks completely and utterly exhausted. Her normally pale face is stark white, and there are deep circles underneath her eyes that look close to bruises. If it weren’t for the fact that Evie isn’t panicking then Ben would think she’s- His mind skirts away from finishing the thought.

Jay is sitting cross legged on the floor where he’s close to but not quite touching Evie or Mal. He looks like death warmed over, which might be a bold claim of Ben to make right now, but it’s one he’s going to stick by. His hair is pulled into a tight bun on the top of his head and he raises a hand in greeting.

He can hear his parents in the living room talking softly to themselves.

“Am I dreaming?” Ben asks the room at large. Carlos makes a questioning noise. “Did she finally break me?”

Carlos looks vaguely sick, and Ben doesn’t even risk looking over at the other three. “You’re not dreaming. And if she finally broke you, then she’s broken all of us as well.”

Ben frowns. “That’s not reassuring,” he says.

“Damn,” Carlos deadpans, grinning a little when it startles a smile out of Ben. He lays a hand on Ben’s ankle, and his grin fades as he meets Ben’s eyes. “They’re gone.”

“You killed them.” It’s not a question, even as the realization only slowly blooms to life. Ben doesn’t know what to think of it. Jay tries to grin, but it falls flat.

“Yes,” he replies matter of factly. There’s really not much more to say. Evie leans around Mal, reaches out to brush his fringe back. Ben flinches back and she stops in her tracks, eyes dark and understanding. Ben stares at her for a long moment before he nods.

Mal mutters under her breath, shifting in the chair. They all quiet down, watching her, but she doesn’t seem to wake. She must be truly exhausted, Ben thinks. He wishes she were at peace, too. She probably would be if this were another hallucination. Dream. Whatever.

“You really shouldn’t trust us,” Evie says, brushing his hair back with a gentle hand. She doesn’t sound all that reproachful. “What if this is a trick?”

“It’s the nicest one, yet,” Ben answers. Carlos’ hand squeezes around his ankle. “I don’t want to wake up and still be… _there._ ”

“Is there a way to prove that you aren’t there?” Jay asks, and Ben honestly has to think on that one.

Grimhilde had found a way into his memories, that first month or so when Maleficent would let her, Jafar, or Cruella take him as they wished without talking to her first. It would be hours of _torture_ until finally, she’d get bored and just curse him a few times before sending him back to his cell.

Then Maleficent had gotten possessive and just wiped his memories all away until Ben was a blank slate for her to mess with as she pleased.

“ _The whole resisting thing is cute,” she said while Ben stared at her. He’d been so certain that good would find a way. That she wouldn’t be able to keep this going forever.  She leaned down until her face was inches away from his. “I’m bored though, and that means that we have to keep things interesting.”_

_The world went blank until -_

“Ben?” Carlos calls out to him. “Breathe.”

Ben brings his hand up to his mouth and bites it until he has to stop or his skin will break. His heartbeat is calmer when he finally answers, “I’m fine.”

There’s a pregnant pause that gets neatly swept under the rug when Jay says, “Do you want to know when you first remembered us?”

Ben stares at the scarred back of his hand idly. He doesn’t think that Maleficent would have paid enough attention to notice how deep the bite marks really go. “I thought I was supposed to ask the questions?”

“You were, but you were taking too long,” Jay teases, ducking out of the way of Evie’s foot as she half heartedly tries to kick him in the shoulder. “Do you want to know when you first remembered us?”

Ben kind of does want to know because everything has blurred together in his memory until he can only pick out small portions that don’t make him want to cry or vomit. Every memory, even a second-hand one, seems precious in light of that. “Sure.”

“It was a few weeks after we finally found out where they kept you,” Jay says, “and you were - not to be an asshole - a mess. You didn’t- You couldn’t even remember your own name at a point there. We kept coming day after day until finally one day you looked at me and said, ‘Is calling you a thief a reflection on me or on you?’ And then you kept calling me the Thief. Asked me where the Princess, the Inventor, and the Dragon were. That we should be together. She wiped your memory twice after that and you still-”

His voice gives out and he hangs his head letting the curtain of hair shield his face. “I don’t think you called us anything else after that until today.”

Ben tries to remember that moment, tries to navigate the field of landmines his memories have become. And then he finds it. The exact moment that Jay’s talking about and with a small amount of wonder he realizes that this was long after Grimhilde’s last memory warping session.

“She was mad that I asked about you,” Ben confesses even though he knows that it may not a good idea. “I didn’t know not to.”

Evie’s hand strokes along his hair again. “We know,” she says. “Do you have a question for me?”

“I’d know you anywhere, Evie,” Ben says, watching as her mouthparts in shock. Her eyes lighting up with a pleased smile and her cheeks turn pink. He’s growing more sure about these people. 

“What?” Jay says a little too fond to be actually mad. “I give you a memory and you give her a compliment and we’re square?”

Ben grins, "Yep, that's about the extent of it. "

Carlos clears his throat, with a haughty expression. "Do you wanna ask me a question? Or am I as unforgettable as Evie?”

Ben thinks about this for a minute. “What were you talking about building the last time?”

“If I tell you will you not fall asleep on me again?” Carlos asks.

Ben laughs despite himself. “I can’t promise. I’m pretty-” He takes a deep breath as exhaustion hits him again. “I’m pretty tired.”

Evie lays a kiss on his forehead.  “Then go back to sleep,” she tells him in her sweetest voice.

 _It’s not a bad suggestion_ , Ben thinks.

“I can still talk you through, if it helps,” Carlos offers quietly. Ben nods, closing his eyes. Between Evie’s gentle fingers brushing through his hair, Carlos even voice as he rambles on about the machine he built, the steady breathing of Jay and Mal- he feels safe. Safe enough that he lets himself drift away.

There are no nightmares that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, kudos and comment if you liked this fic! Thank you very much and have an awesome day!


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